Creating Innovators The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World By Tony Wagner

IN THIS GROUNDBREAKING BOOK, education expert Tony Wagner provides a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. He explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators. In profiling compelling young American innovators such as Kirk Phelps, product manager for Apple’s first iPhone, and Jodie Wu, who founded a company that builds bicycle-powered maize shellers in Tanzania, Wagner reveals how the adults in their lives nurtured their creativity and sparked their imaginations, while teaching them to learn from failures and persevere. Wagner identifies a pattern—a childhood of creative play leads to deep-seated interests, which in adolescence and adulthood blossom into a deeper purpose for career and life goals. Play, passion, and purpose: These are the forces that drive young innovators.
Wagner shows how we can apply this knowledge as educators and what parents can do to compensate for poor schooling. He takes readers into the most forward-thinking schools, colleges, and workplaces in the country, where teachers and employers are developing cultures of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving, and intrinsic motivation. The result is a timely, provocative, and inspiring manifesto that will change how we look at our schools and workplaces, and provide us with a road map for creating the change makers of tomorrow.
Creating Innovators will feature its own innovative elements: more than sixty original videos that expand on key ideas in the book through interviews with young innovators, teachers, writers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs, including Thomas Friedman, Dean Kamen, and Annmarie Neal. Produced by filmmaker Robert A. Compton, the videos are embedded into the ebook edition in video-enabled eReaders and accessible in this print edition via QR codes placed throughout the chapters or via www.creatinginnovators.com.

Introduction

R

ecent events and new questions and insights have compelled me
to write this book.
My last book, The Global Achievement Gap, published in 2008,
described the new skills students need for careers, college, and citizenship
in the twenty-first century and the growing gap between these skills versus what is taught and tested in our schools. Judging by the outpouring
of positive responses to the book from diverse audiences and the many
subsequent speaking requests I received from all corners of the world,
it would appear that I got a number of things right in that book. But I
now see that the new skills I described—which I call the Seven Survival
Skills—while necessary, are not sufficient.
The world has changed profoundly since 2008. The economies of the
West are in shambles. In the United States, the combined rate of unemployment and underemployment is more than 15 percent, and in some
European countries it is far worse. Many economists say the solution is
for consumers to start spending again, thus creating new jobs. But most
consumers can no longer borrow money as easily as they once did. And
because many fear for their jobs, they are now saving at a far greater rate
than just a few years ago. It is not clear when—or even if—our consumerdriven economy and accompanying low unemployment rates will ever
return. Meanwhile, both economists and policy makers are caught up in
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fierce debates about whether to reduce debt or provide more economic
stimulus, which would in the short term increase government debt.
Most leaders agree on one thing, however. The long-term health of
our economy and a full economic recovery are dependent upon creating far more innovation. New or improved ideas, products, and services
create wealth and new jobs. Business leaders, in particular, say that we
need many more young people who can create innovations in the areas
of science, technology, and engineering. Many argue that so-called
STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is
increasingly important to the future of our country. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike say that for our young people to be better
prepared for high-wage, high-skilled jobs, they must all graduate from
high school “college ready” and earn a two-year or four-year postsecondary degree—preferably in a STEM-related field. Thomas Friedman
and Michael Mandelbaum take the argument even further in their recent
book, That Used to Be Us, asserting that only the jobs of innovators and
entrepreneurs will be immune to outsourcing or automation in the new
global knowledge economy.
At the same time as these arguments have gained traction, there has
also been a growing concern about the cost of a college education and
whether college students are learning very much in their classes. In 2010,
college debt—estimated at $1 trillion—exceeded credit card debt for the
first time.1 And in early 2011, a new study revealed that, after two years
of college, nearly half of all students were no more skillful than when they
began their studies, and fully one-third showed no gains after four years.2
Statistics show college graduates earn far more than high school graduates.
But is that because they are actually more skilled or because the credential
has become a simple way to weed through the forest of résumés?
Given the near consensus on the vital importance of innovation in
today’s economy, I decided to explore the question of how you educate
young people to become innovators. What are the capacities that matter
most for innovation, and how are they best taught? I became especially
interested in what truly constitutes a meaningful STEM education.
The question of how teachers can develop those students skills that
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matter most for our country’s future has become even more urgent for
me as I have followed the recent education-reform debates in the United
States and elsewhere. I am frankly appalled at the idea, now widely held,
that the best measure of teachers’ effectiveness is students’ performance
on standardized, multiple-choice tests. I am not a fan of teacher tenure,
and I believe strongly in accountability for improved student learning.
However, most policy makers—and many school administrators—have
absolutely no idea what kind of instruction is required to produce students who can think critically and creatively, communicate effectively,
and collaborate versus merely score well on a test. They are also clueless
about what kind of teaching best motivates this generation to learn. And
the tests that policy makers continue to use as an indication of educational progress do not measure any of the skills that matter most today.
We need more profiles of quality instruction—and better sources of evidence of results—to inform the education debate.
Since the publication of The Global Achievement Gap, I have been
inundated with e-mails from concerned parents. They know their children’s schools are not teaching the skills that they will need, and the parents want to know what they can do. I have my own experience as the
father of three wonderful children, now grown with children of their
own, but that hardly seems like a sufficient basis for giving advice to other
parents. How do parents nurture some of the important skills and attributes of their children? I began to wonder.
In the last few years, I have had opportunities to work with highly
innovative companies such as Apple, Cisco Systems, and Scholastic, as
well as with senior leaders in the US Army. I have been fascinated by how
these leaders see the world and deal with the accelerating pace of change.
I became interested in what the best employers do to develop the capacities of young people to be innovators. I also recently met with education
leaders and visited schools in Finland, whose education system is considered the best in the world. It is also credited with helping to produce one
of the most innovative economies in the world. I wanted to explore what
lessons we might learn from Finland’s success.
Finally, I have continued to be intrigued by this so-called net generaxi

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tion—the first to grow up as what Marc Prensky calls “digital natives.” I
interviewed a number of twentysomethings for the last book, but felt I
had only scratched the surface of understanding this generation. Since
then, the debate about this generation’s work ethic—or lack of one—has
continued to rage. So I wanted to better understand how they might be
differently motivated, and what kinds of teaching and leadership they
respond to most positively.
Out of all these disparate influences and questions an idea for a new
book began to emerge. I resolved, first, to take a leap and become a student of innovation—something about which I knew little until a few
years ago. I have tried to understand what the skills of successful innovators are and why are they so important to our future. I interviewed highly
innovative twentysomethings and then studied their “ecosystems”—the
parental, teaching, and mentoring influences that they told me had been
most important in their development. I wanted to see if I could discern
patterns of parenting that contribute to the nurturing of young innovators. And what about the teachers whom these innovators identified as
having been most important in their development—were there any similarities in their methods? Are there colleges or graduate programs that do
an excellent job of teaching the skills of innovation, and if so, how might
they be different? I also sought to learn what the mentors and employers of young innovators had to say about how these capacities are best
fostered.
I’ve interviewed scores of diverse young innovators—budding engineers, scientists, artists, musicians, and other individuals who have started
companies or worked for some of the most innovative companies in the
world, as well social innovators and entrepreneurs who are seeking better
ways to solve societal problems. I then interviewed their parents, teachers, and mentors. I observed classes and conducted interviews at several
colleges and graduate programs that have an international reputation
for graduating innovators. Finally, I interviewed business and military
leaders who are dealing with the challenges of developing organizational
capacities to innovate. In all, I conducted more than 150 interviews for
this book.
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It has been an utterly fascinating project, but also challenging because
of its scope and complexity. For this reason, I decided to limit the innovators whom I profile in this book to young people between the ages of
twenty-one and thirty-two who fall into one of two categories: individuals who are doing highly innovative work in so-called STEM fields, and
individuals engaged in social innovation and entrepreneurship. The former are critical to our economic future, the latter to our social and civic
well-being. I have also chosen to combine the categories of innovators
and entrepreneurs. I am well aware that not every young innovator is an
entrepreneur or vice versa. However, I discovered that the majority of
the young people whom I interviewed aspire to be both, and that young
innovators and entrepreneurs—regardless of their areas of interest—
share some common roots.
Describing how I found the people I interviewed would take another
book. Research for this project has been much like the process of following hyperlinks on the Internet. Several of my student researchers suggested names of young people whom they had met or read about, while
angel investors and venture capitalists introduced me to others. Some
individuals—such as General Martin Dempsey—found me. One source
would take me to another and that one to the next. I make no claims to a
“scientific” sampling. However, based on all that I have learned in the last
three years, I have a high degree of confidence that the innovators whom
I profile in depth are a representative sample.
I am enormously grateful to the innovators I write about here, as well
as the ones whom I had to leave out for space reasons, and to all of their
parents, teachers, and mentors. Everyone gave me hours of their time—
often over several interviews and in follow-up e-mails—and allowed me
complete access to their life and family history.
Thanks to the persistence and hard work of Bob Compton, you will
not only meet many of these people between the pages of this book,
you will also be able to see and hear them on camera. Bob—who himself has had a remarkable career as a high-tech innovator, entrepreneur,
and angel investor—has recently focused his energies on producing an
outstanding set of videos about education. His first, 2 Million Minutes,
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was screened by all of the presidential candidates in 2008 and has sold
more than twenty thousand copies. We met at an Investment in America
Forum at West Point several years ago, and we recently collaborated on a
film about Finland’s education system, The Finland Phenomenon: Inside
the World’s Most Surprising School System.3 When I told Bob about plans
for this new book, he urged me to make it a truly innovative book in
its format—and not just a book about innovation. So throughout these
pages, you will find a series of cues that direct you to a website where you
can watch special video content.
Whether you are a parent, teacher (preschool through college), mentor, employer, or policy maker, I think you will find that the print and
video profiles of these young innovators, as well as the ecosystems that
have helped them to develop their capacities, have a great deal to teach
us all. I know that I was—and continue to be—inspired by the people
whom I interviewed for this project. So I invite you to read, watch, listen,
learn—and then to reflect, share, and discuss with your friends and colleagues. For if we are to create a strong economic future and a sustainable
way of life for our children and grandchildren, we all have much that we
can and must do together.
VIDEO CUE:
Wagner on Why I Wrote This Book
Go to www.creatinginnovators.com
to watch the video.